Stranger than Fiction
by OnyxRose13
Summary: When S.H.I.E.L.D. takes a strange woman prisoner they have no idea of the trouble it will cause. Complicated, dangerous, and with a past tied to chaos himself, in her The Avengers may have gotten more than they bargained for. Loki x OC. Rating will increase.
1. Prologue: The Catacombs

_**Saw the movie. Loved it. This story is the result.**_

_**A warning that I have read up on Norse mythology but I do intend to take artistic license with certain things, I'm sorry if that upsets anyone but I have a very specific plot in mind.**_

_**I do not own the Avengers or Thor.**_

_**Warnings: Mild violence.**_

_**That said, please enjoy and don't forget to review.**_

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She would have been lying if she tried to claim that blood bothered her.

It was tremendously annoying at times, instances in which she was injured and the fluid would congeal and cling, slowing her movements. Or like now when ten lay at her feet and it was soaking up through her boot and the markedly fluid noise it made when she moved was a hindrance because she decidedly did not want to be caught here.

But she didn't fear it, not in the slightest, it ran through the veins of all living things and if she opened her senses enough she could read the truth of who her victim was when she spilt it. Perhaps a lady ought not to think of such things but all the things a lady was meant to think of had been stripped from her life and now she thought what a killer should think of instead. They had been right about one thing, she would not have been suited to a life of polite smiles, violence was in her nature.

This sudden sympathy however, was not. She asked herself again why she had come, she had managed to avoid him for nearly three centuries as of the next month, though she did not keep track. Yet the moment she had caught wind of what had happened to her once home world and then again on Earth she could not stop herself returning to see if the rumors were true.

She hadn't actively decided to come see him per say, after laying low in a dilapidated guest house in a slum well away from the palace for roughly two weeks her source had finally come through for her and confirmed what her instincts had already told her. The whispers circulating the realms were not false, and he had been captured and placed in a cell deep beneath the Grand House of Odin, left to meditate on his crimes for the rest of conceivable eternity.

This was how she found herself creeping along the pathways of the dark catacombs hidden in the sea cliffs, sliding one foot before the other, balancing easily on the balls of her feet, she moved near soundlessly. Perhaps she ought to be grateful for the training the warriors here had given her but as with most things she felt nothing in regard to them. Except perhaps anger for locking him away like some common thief after everything they had done to him.

Another rare pang of guilt came at that thought, where it not for her he would not have fallen so far out of favor. Where once she hadn't known which stars to thank for the twist of fate that brought them together now she cursed his too accepting nature and whatever else lay within him that had made a prince have any interest in a lost alien with no planet to call home.

Loki, dear, naive Loki, though not as guileless as he had once been if what he had done to the humans was any indication. Many of the Asgardians thought him wicked and conniving, an incorrigible liar and perhaps he was, but the boy she had known was not possessed of any malice, only humor and a fascination with the workings of the mind. "Tell me what you are thinking?", he would ask her and his curiosity was so genuine that any silence she had sworn to herself would break, she often revealed things she had yet to admit to herself. A substantial feat alone, considering how rarely she had spoken during her time in the eternal realm. She spoke even less at present, but now she had no confidant so she had no cause to.

Her fists clenched inside her dark gloves, her emotions, which she normally held at bay so well that many had accused her of not having any, were rising, but she couldn't stop it. She never could where he was concerned. Him and his damned hope, it was infectious and there had been a time when she couldn't help but believe, but now…

Now she knew hope was poison.

She drew a deep breath and forced her mind to go blank. That was all in the past now, she had come with a purpose. She may not have been particularly compassionate but leaving him to rot was one of the few things she could not tolerate having on her conscience, particularly not when it was this easy to do what her remaining shred of morality begged her to. It was simple really, his freedom and they would be even for the sacrifice he had once made on her behalf.

She would not speak to him either, after all that had passed between them mere words would be insufficient to convey whatever should have been expressed, it was a gap to wide to be bridged. He need not know she had come, need not even see her. He would only know that there was at least one who did not believe he should be sealed away in the dark.

The bourgeois people in the palace overhead and all of their loyal subjects thought him dangerous. Given their way they would entomb him below the earth and forget him and his imperfection and keep utopia before their eyes. What was one more life destroyed to them? One more broken man? One more ugly secret? Asgard was full of them. She had come to understand that the people of this world would sacrifice anything to preserve what they perceived to be a paradise, if only one must suffer for the good of all then it was merely a sad casualty.

Unfortunately for them she had stopped caring about what they wanted a long time ago. There was only the mission and then she would go to Midgard and try to find some way to occupy herself. She had heard there were always factions on that world who would pay handsomely for a mercenary and she could use the distraction.

It was odd how she had no true sense of where his cell might actually reside and yet her path was sure and clear to her as day despite the ceaseless twisting and turning of the tunnels. They had always been able to do that, she could find him blindfold and she had wondered if time and distance would erase that eerily innate sense. Or any of it for that matter the sadness, the pain, or the memories. Now she had her answer.

Nothing had changed

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_**Please leave a comment. : )**_


	2. Chapter 1: Pakistan

_**Thank you to those of you who reviewed, I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly the prologue procured a positive response and so in one of my fastest updates ever I have Chapter 1 ready for you.**  
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_**The OC in this story is my first ever in a leading role, review and help me avoid the horror of Marry-Sue.**_

_**I do not own the Avengers or Thor.**_

_**Warnings: Some violence and gore.**_

_**Please enjoy. **_

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_Six months later._

Natasha Romanov had just enough time to turn on her tracking device that would convey to the others that she needed back up before she was forced to flatten herself against the rough stone of the cave wall to avoid her opponent.

The assignment had started routinely enough, she was to pose as a tourist visiting a bazaar in the working class district of Jaisalmer, an apparently vulnerable european woman was more than enough to bait the Pakistani terrorists she had been tracking on Director Fury's orders for the past three months.

They group it's self wasn't anything noteworthy, a small-time collection of a few extremists who pulled off what would be considered little more than minor disturbances in the Middle East, car bombs and the like. Then roughly four and a half months prior out of nowhere they had taken out an entire platoon of american troops. Killed wasn't the right word because that implied something as simple and crude as murder, they had erased them, no evidence of how they had done it, or what may have happened to the bodies, and the military was left to try to piece together how a seeming non-entity had made roughly forty highly trained men vanish into thin air. When they failed to come up with any viable scenarios they had turned the case over to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a more extensive examination. Interrogation was her specialty and so the task of constructing a hypothesis about what might have transpired fell to her.

Natasha was no stranger to the shifting balance of power in volatile parts of the world, it was simple actually, a society at it's most appalling but a society none the less, and a heavily hierarchal one at that. Here the largest, most violent groups held the power and whoever could carry out the most successful shock and awe campaign possessed that title. In other words a great deal of it came down to posturing and she had seen this ploy one hundred times over, they had hired a group of high caliber soldiers to make it look like they were more dangerous than they really were.

In theory from that point her assignment became extremely straightforward, capture and question one of the members about how they had pulled off something of that magnitude, then hand them over to interpol. Given that she had been fighting in a war this time last year it was practically a vacation.

The scene when her "captors" had finally removed the blindfold from her eyes spoke differently however. They had driven her out to somewhere in the lesser Himalaya in the back of a dilapidated blue pick up, a Ford she noted dryly, to what she assumed was their base which really amounted to little more than a cave with some tables, chairs, and outdated Stark tech crammed into it however she scarcely noticed the equipment in light of the sight before them.

It was a total blood bath. At least a dozen carcasses littered the ground, nearly all of them in various states of disembowelment and every visible surface was coated in red fluid, she barely contained a shudder as the dripping ceiling caught her attention. Most of it had collected in a pool on the dirt floor and was slowly but surely soaking in to it, turning it to mud.

In the middle of it all a figure stood over the carnage, Natasha frowned and blinked to make sure she was seeing correctly.

What she had been expecting was a band of several men, in all likelihood with guns and knives, most mercenaries in this part of the world had an undeniably rough air about them, soldiers of fortune were recognized by an abundance of scars from a lifetime of fighting.

She had not been expecting the cause of such a scene to be a woman.

She was very beautiful, tall, waif-like and deceptively fragile looking, even given that she was covered in blood. Her hair was long and dark and because her back was to her she could see that most of it was tangled and damp.

Her pants were were ripped and stained almost beyond recognition as such and her top which might have been white at one point, was practically falling off. From beneath the frayed material she could see a long, deep gash that spanned most of the left side of her ribcage where someone had obviously cut her, the wound was swollen and caked with dirt. Blood and pus leaked freely from the abrasion and she could see a white shard of bone from a broken rib just above the curve of her waist, she estimated the woman had perhaps a few hours to receive medical attention before the infections became debilitating.

Her hope was that she would be able to reason with her, women normally weren't given to the same irrational rages men were, there must have been a reason she killed them. Had they attempted to force themselves on her? Struck her? Threatened her?

She took a deep breath and stepped forward, ignoring her armed escorts in favor of slowly and cautiously approaching the other female, "Hello, my name is agent Romanov", she began, reciting the script she had learned as a recruit for these situations, "I am a representative of a government organization called-".

"Get out", the voice was curiously accented, very quiet, and very cold. For a moment she thought she heard something like menace hidden in her words but decided she had imagined it, chalking her paranoia up to the shock of finding three quarters of her targets massacred. Even perfectly decent people could do things that seemed unimaginable under ordinary circumstances if they were pushed too far, in all likelihood she had nothing to fear.

Nonetheless, Natasha frowned, taken aback by the swift and harsh response a simple greeting had elicited, but she supposed it was only natural that she would be wary of a stranger who had just arrived with the remaining members of the syndicate. It would take some carefully chosen words to convince the woman she meant no harm"I understand that you may be frightened or even injured", she pressed on, "I ask that you remain calm and cooperate fully so that I may provide you with any assistance that you require".

"I said leave", came the hissed reply and the woman turned sharply. The frightening speed and grace of the motion alone were shocking enough but it was the woman's eyes that made her freeze.

They were empty.

She had seen that look before, every morning in the mirror before Clint had found her and helped her gain a purpose. It was the expression of someone who believed they had nothing left to loose, of someone who no longer cared what happened to them, of a killing machine.

Perhaps if her life had not been her own and she were less worldly Natasha would have been afraid, but as it stood her heart only ached in pity for whatever horror the woman had suffered to reduce her to such a state. It was not a question of if something terrible had happened to her but what, and more importantly what had she been forced to do to survive?

The long fingers flexed and she took note of a shard of broken glass held loosely between them, but the woman remained otherwise motionless, her posture did nothing to indicate her next actions. She had been trained, there was no question of it, a civilian would have unconsciously backed away betraying an intention to run or leaned forward in preparation for a fight. It was only a skilled combatant that would recognize the need to keep a neutral stance, carefully shifting their body so that no tendency might be more pronounced than the others. And if this was no random act of desperate violence, if this was calculated then she must have known these men, perhaps even worked with them…Her eyes widened in realization…

"You're the mercenary", she murmured.

A deep gash on her forehead was dripping down onto her small, straight, nose, her lips were parted to reveal a gleaming flash of razored teeth, and her hollow eyes stared, she nodded once.

She worked hard to keep her face blank and not show how much that discomfited her. Save for a couple of useless men who meant to kill her she was alone with a person who had single handedly obliterated an entire squadron and she was in no way prepared for any kind of prolonged combat, most of her more powerful weapons were in her room at headquarters because she had believed this would be a routine recon job. For the first time in a long time she had been caught off guard.

She closed her eyes and counted back from ten in her head in an attempt to clear her mind. When the blind panic had settled she leveled her own gaze at the tall figure across the plateau and forced herself to say in a clear, steady voice, "Did you kill those soldiers?".

The woman tilted her head to the side as if to say that she did not consider it of any particular importance, "I did".

She could remember being like that at one time to, playing at being emotionless, but if this woman were similar to herself at all somewhere buried beneath that careful apathy, it was painful to think that so many people had suffered at her hands.

"How did you do it?", she pressed.

At this a cruel, vague little smile touched her quarry's features, "Would you like to see?", she questioned serenely.

Natasha did not respond, trepidation told her to remove herself from the situation before the same fate befell her, both duty and compassion told her the right course was to stay.

The woman did not wait for her answer and she suddenly regarded the remaining men, utterly expressionless, and stretched out a slender hand to them.

The three of them looked between one another, clearly confused by the gesture.

It occurred to her before it actually happened that she was about to loose her remaining witnesses.

The tall woman's eyes narrowed slightly in what at least looked like concentration and watched them, searching each for a reaction, and then abruptly coiled her hand into a fist.

They didn't even have time to scream and she distantly heard her own sharp intake of breath as her captors disintegrated on the spot, the swirling cloud of dust left behind, their remains, vanished with a hot gust of wind. A telekinetic, a true telekinetic, she had never even heard of a real one before, let alone seen one. Her brow furrowed in anxiety, in his time Director Fury had come up against a handful of people possessed of the power to move objects with their mind, from every experience he had chosen to share with them it seemed such individuals were notoriously powerful and lacking in control.

She was reminding herself more determinedly than ever not to show this woman fear. She behaved like a predator and to not appear as prey it was crucial to seem an equal, she could not demonstrate any weakness now.

She would stick to protocol until such a time that it was impossible.

"You aren't human, are you?", she called her voice echoing oddly across the now empty rocky plane.

"No".

That ruled out the possibility of the woman being some sort of experiment or mutant. Frustration flittered through her, that was going to make it tenfold more difficult to gather information on her and she had a very clear sense that one would not want to be caught off guard by this woman. The better an idea they had of what they were dealing with the safer it would be for everyone involved.

"What are you?", Natasha could tell by the sudden tensing of the woman's thin shoulders that she was pushing her luck, it was the first true display of emotion so far, her question must have touched a nerve.

The woman looked at her hands, spreading her slim, willowy fingers wide, dropping the shard of glass in the process, and murmured, "Do I want to know?".

She frowned, uncertain if she was implying that she did not know her own origin or if she were simply mocking her.

"Do you have a name?".

"Yes", she made no move to elaborate further.

"Will you give it?".

"It does not matter", the woman answered flatly.

"Actually it does", Natasha corrected, "You're coming with me. Are you aware that you're wanted for the murder of U.S. Army Platoon Eleven?".

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?", came the maddeningly mild reply.

"It should", she responded honestly, "But after what you just showed me I didn't expect it to".

"And if I would choose not to come with you?".

Despite herself she smiled, she seemed to catch on fast, "I wasn't actually asking".

The woman seemed to debate for a moment and then said, "I have no dispute with you, leave me alone and I will not harm you". She strode forward with a smooth, gliding, gait and as she approached the extent of the damage to her body became more apparent. Besides the major injuries there were countless cuts and bruises and Natasha was left to wonder why someone who could kill effortlessly from a distance would engage in hand to hand combat.

Regardless, she could not let her leave, the United States Government wanted answers and Director Fury had trusted her to find them. As subtly as she could she reached for the gun in the holster at her hip, hidden beneath her long skirt, silently working the zipper back.

The instant her thumb found the cold metal of the weapon the woman's eyes shot to her hand, she lifted an eyebrow skeptically, "That won't work on me", she shared calmly.

"I don't want to kill you", she explained, "I just need to force your cooperation".

The woman flicked a finger and the piece of glass returned to her grip, "You're certain?".

"I'm certain", she pulled the gun from it's hiding place.

"If you wish", the woman conceded.

And then she disappeared.

Natasha had just enough time to duck as the woman's arm shot past her head, slicing her ear in the process. She scrambled backward and pulled herself to her feet, leveling the gun on her opponent with shaking hands, it had been a long time since anyone had gotten that close to landing a fatal hit.

She pulled the trigger but the woman evaded the bullet easily and lunged again, she rolled to the side and and found her back pressed against the cave entrance. She swore and ducked inside to avoid a vicious slash aimed at her abdomen , pulling out her tracker in the process and flicking the switch that would send the alert, "Come on Clint", she whispered.

"He won't find you in time", the lifeless voice came from somewhere near the entrance to the dark cavern.

She did not rise to the bait, knowing that the woman likely could not see her, she was waiting for her to make a sound to betray her location.

The sound of her heart racing in her chest was deafening and she was sure the woman could hear it, that she was using the same blood rushing in her ears to hunt her. Natasha closed her eyes and attempted to get a grip on her fear, not of death, she had never been afraid to die. It was the waiting, the terrible anticipation before the axe fell.

The tall woman made no noise as she stalked the caves, no footsteps, no breath, it was like she had ceased to exist save for that terrible sense of something dangerous in the cavern.

And then finally a familiar sound, a welcome sound, an arrow whizzing through the air, followed by a dull thud and a sharp intake of air.

She opened her eyes to see Clint's silhouette, outlined against the late afternoon sun beyond the cave.

The woman stood perhaps only ten feet from where she was crouched and she could just make out the arrow protruding through her chest. She whipped around to see her assailant and nodded when she came face to face with Agent Barton, "Impressive", she whispered.

And then she collapsed.

Natasha clambered over the rock floor to where the slight body had fallen, "Did you kill her?", she gasped, as she hurriedly seized a delicate wrist to check for a pulse.

He shook his head, "That arrow was laced with a powerful sedative, unless I messed up and hit a vital organ she should be fine".

She nodded, and took hold of the arrow, pulling it out in a single, hard tug. She knew from experience it was easier to remove them in one fell swoop than go through the messy process of slowly prying them from the body as the inflammation of the wound made extraction increasingly more painful and difficult.

Clint rubbed her shoulder reassuringly and not for the first time she was grateful that he knew how precious a simple, friendly, gesture could be to a person in their line of work. He pulled his mobile from his pocket and she heard an indistinct voice on the other end answer.

"Yeah", he replied, "we got them. Bring the bird around".

The woman groaned and stirred, Natasha jerked back as if she had been burned. How was she coming to already? The medication should have been more than enough to knock out someone her size for quite a while. Clint noted the movement as well with a grim expression and added, "Make it fast".

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_**Leave a review and let me know what you thought : )**_


	3. Chapter 2: The White Room

_**This story will be Loki x OC very soon, but I wanted a chance to show her interactions with the current Avengers. **  
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_**I do not own Thor or The Avengers.**_

_**Warnings: Mild swearing, implied partial nudity, graphic violence**_

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_-Bruce Banner-_

He adjusted the volume on the stereo next to his desk and the sound of a sitar being played became just a hair softer. There were parts of Calcutta that were a veritable hell-hole and yet he found there were at least one or two aspects of living in India that he missed, the constant sound of the stringed instrument in the background was one of them.

He still wasn't entirely certain how Fury had convinced him to return to the U.S. and work for S.H.I.E.L.D., he hated New York. Unlike the city he had left behind this place held no particular beauty for him, no unexpected wonders or captivating culture. It was a collection of more enormous metal boxes than should ever be crammed into a given area full of pushy and noisy people, in so many words it was exactly the sort of situation that he should avoid. A constant onslaught of stress with no redeeming qualities.

He had managed to find a few things to take comfort in. For one S.H.I.E.L.D. had given him a spectacular apartment and done their best to outfit it to suit his particular…needs. The whole set up was rather impressive when he stopped to truly consider it, triple thick, reinforced walls, bullet proof glass, a panic room, very elaborate. Furthermore they paid him extremely well and so he was able to indulge in his own private research in his admittedly generous spare time.

Another god-send was his new friendship with Tony Stark, despite the billionaire's insistence that he should allow his other side to run rampant when ever the urge struck he had proven himself a reliable friend. Tony liked to play the part of spoiled, attention seeking, celebrity but it was obvious if one spent so much as ten minutes with the guy that he was empathetic to a fault. The man wore his heart on the outside and that statement truly summed up all that one truly needed to know or understand about him. Moreover, his fiance, Pepper, was one of most genuinely pleasant and funny people he had ever met, and her countenance naturally put others at ease, all in all she was an ideal person to interact with. They had both gone above and beyond to ensure he felt comfortable in New York and for that he was very grateful.

In fact, Tony's companionship was the reason that he was rushing to scribble out one last equation before he left work for the evening, he had somehow gotten roped in to having dinner with them every thursday night and the building's receptionist had already let him know that the car had arrived for him ten minutes ago. Knowing Tony he wouldn't even mention it if Bruce were to stroll in an hour late but of course that was no excuse to do so.

When the last symbol had been placed on the page, the last integral properly noted, he took a brief moment to lean back in his seat and stretch, reasonably satisfied with the ground he had covered for the day. He stood stiffly and began sorting the numerous sheets of paper on his desk into their respective manilla folders. There had been a time when he could have left them where they lay but it would have been beyond humiliating to have something as simple as a lost document set him off and so he took every precaution he could think of.

He had turned the music off and was collecting his jacket when his office door banged open and a very shaken looking Agent Romanov entered the room.

"Are you busy?", she demanded without so much as a hello.

He frowned at her abruptness, "As a matter of fact I have plans", he returned to gathering his possessions and pointedly ignored her distinctly agitated air .

"I already called Tony and told him you couldn't make it", she dismissed impatiently.

He snorted, "Then why bother asking?".

"I was hoping you would cooperate", her lips quirked.

Despite himself he smirked in return, "How is that working out for you?".

"All joking aside I need you to come with me", she replied briskly, "We have urgent need of your expertise".

He laughed, "You have urgent need of a_ physicist_?".

She smiled, "Not a physicist", she corrected, "A physician".

"I thought you people kept doctors on sight so they could patch up you and Barton when you come back all banged up".

"We do, but I doubt the conventional doctors would help us much", she said simply and swept the door open , pausing only long enough to gesture for him to follow. He sighed and reluctantly trailed after her, as she had said he didn't appear to have much say in the matter.

"What is it exactly that I'm supposed to be examining?", he called, struggling slightly to keep up with her despite her significantly shorter stature. He wondered not for the first time what sort of training the agents were put through, despite not having any terribly unusual abilities Natasha's outstanding physical condition seemed superhuman to him at times.

"Do you remember hearing about that platoon that disappeared back in March?", she asked and despite the seeming irrelevance of the questioned he confirmed that he had.

"Don't tell me you found them", he added, jogged a couple paces and fell into step with her as they rounded a corner that would take them in the direction of the medical wing.

Better", she answered, "We found the killer".

He considered, but ultimately decided against commenting on her priorities, realizing that such thinking was in her training and while he may not like it pointing her apparent amorality out would only hurt her. Better to live and let live then upset her when she would undoubtedly be going in to question the new prisoner as soon as the inmate was deemed fit for interrogation.

"Is that where you just came from?", he asked, noticing for the first time the smell of antiseptic and the cut on her left ear.

"Yes", she nodded once, her short hair bobbing with the motion. Some may have felt compelled to elaborate but she clearly did not believe it merited further explanation.

There was an uncomfortable period in which they reached the elevator and stepped in. A heavy silence ensued in the aftermath that he was uncertain how to break and moreover Agent Romanov seemed perfectly content with the pointed quiet. He wasn't overly fond of metal boxes under the best circumstances and that combined with his anxiety at what they might be asking him to undertake combined with his irritation at not currently being on his way to the new Thai restraint on fortieth had him dangerously wound up. He stayed calm with careful planning and a meticulously kept routine, he hated having anything sprung on him like this.

In the interest of not killing the pretty redhead in an interruption induced rage he turned to her and inquired,"So what am I looking at? One of Oscorp's escaped lab rats? A mutant? An Asgardian?", he ventured.

Natasha shrugged a delicate shoulder in that noncommittal way of hers and the elevator beeped before the door opened to reveal the ICU, "I have no idea what she is, she wouldn't tell me".

Bruce's brow shot up in surprise, "She?".

He followed her down another corridor away from the primary care area to the isolation unit and there at the end of it inside an all white, padded room with a single, bullet proof observation window, sat a dark haired woman in a hospital gown. She looked very small, curled up on the floor, her wrists cuffed behind her and her slight frame drowning in the baggy garment, he noted she was shaking but was unsure if it was due to cold or infirmity and it would have been enough for him to pity her if she had not been staring up at them with what could only be described as killing intent.

He watched with a sick sort of fascination as her long nails left tears in the NASA grade foam of the wall behind her, her hands convulsing with each tremor and every once in a while she would shift suddenly and press herself more tightly against the wall as if attempting to find some form of protection in her utterly sterile environment. And through it all she observed him with unblinking eyes that he was sure would unsettle even Director Fury. He did not miss that her gaze landed on his temple, on his jugular vein, on his chest and he knew she was mapping out weak points for her self so when she found an opportunity she would know exactly where to strike. She pulled her knees beneath her body, the gown riding indecently high on one of her slender thighs as she did so and he should have looked away but didn't, and with a surprising degree of ease for someone who appeared to be on the verge of a seizure she pushed herself to her feet.

"That's impossible", he heard his beautiful companion whisper hoarsely.

He frowned and forced himself to tear his eyes away from the person in the cell, though his instincts were screaming at him to not let her out of his sight lest she sneak up on him and rip his throat out. Out of the corner of the eye he tracked her movements.

"She shouldn't be able to move", Agent Romanov shook her head, clearly at a loss, "She shouldn't be standing, she shouldn't even be awake. We gave her anesthetics strong enough to knock out a horse. And look!", she snatched a stack of glossy eight by tens off of the medical cart stationed outside the door to the cell, each one depicting some form of injury, "Look at this!", she shook the pictures in emphasis and looked between them and their macabre prisoner.

Every, single, visible injury in the photographs was gone, down to the last scratch. The woman looked weak, and shaken to be sure, but she wasn't carrying herself like she was wounded, and she wouldn't have been able to make the necessary contortions to stand with all the damage that appeared in the images

"When were these taken?". he asked.

"Three hours ago".

He barely suppressed a wince when he noticed a photo clearly depicting a compound fracture. However her injuries had miraculously healed, if her rib had set wrong it could cause an infection, break through the skin again, or worse, puncture a vital organ. Ideally they would give her an x-ray but he had a feeling it was safer for everyone if they didn't try to move her from her cell, the only other option would be for him to get into the enclosure with her and do a manual examination of the site.

He reasoned that would be safe, if nothing else the other guy would provide protection if she attacked him, he moved toward the wide, double thick window.

Natasha made a rather startled noise of protest and gripped his arm to stop him, irritation flashed through him but he quelled it with practiced ease and brushed her hand away as gently as he could manage. "I'll be fine", he mouthed

Slowly, cautiously, he approached the glass, and saw the woman do the same. She stood almost as tall as he did and her impressive height emphasized an already ominous prescence. A thick mass of dark hair obscured a fair portion of her face and because she could not use her hands he saw her jerk her head ill-temperedly in an attempt dislodge it, she was unsuccessful and her lip twitched in barely restrained frustration.

When her expression became a mask of apathy once more she settled for tipping her head to the side to examine him more closely._ Jeez_. He shuddered, he could practically feel the blood lust radiating off of her and he fought not to back away as her dead eyes roved his face. He couldn't remember the last time someone had put him this much on edge.

"Do you speak english?", he asked her for the sake of cutting the tension.

"Yes", the cold, raspy voice made him jump.

"Alright, my name is Doctor Banner", he slipped easily into the role of caregiver and realized that he had missed it, this feeling of directly aiding others, "Can you tell me your name?".

"Surely she", the woman jerked her head in Natasha's direction, "told you that I won't".

"It was worth a try", he shrugged, "Now, could you please tell me if you are experiencing any pain, miss?".

Her head tipped even further in what he recognized as a quizzical gesture and her brow furrowed in confusion, "Miss? I do not understand", she sounded completely lost.

"It a prefix we use here", he explained, "for women who aren't married-", he stopped short, realizing that he didn't know anything about the family she may or may not have, "Is that right?", he added hastily.

"That is correct".

At least he hadn't pissed her off yet. He was gaining the sense that despite her apparent indifference she was not slow to anger.

"Please tell me if something hurts", he repeated, "Your side maybe?", he ventured.

The woman's eyes lowered to the floor and she seemed to contemplate for a moment and he could not tell if she were simply trying to assess her physical state or deciding if he could be trusted with the information that she was injured. He must have done something right because after a long, silent, moment she said, "It hurts a little".

He nodded, yes he would imagine it did, when in all likelihood there was a substantial bone shard jabbing into her body. He was sorely hoping she did not require surgery because it was proving so difficult to keep her under and as a rule he did not operate without anesthetic, the whole process became unduly painful and messy in it's absence.

As frightening as he found her he had no desire to subject the woman to that kind of suffering, it was obvious that she didn't trust them or any one else present, the girl obviously had a chip on her shoulder a mile wide and making it worse was not going to make her any easier to deal with.

"I'm going to need to go in there", he said, trying to convey the facts in the most unthreatening way he knew how, "I'm worried that there is a problem with your rib and if I don't fix it, it could make you very sick".

Her eyes immediately darted all over her cell, clearly searching for some safe crevice to retreat to for safety if so desired and he felt a twinge of pity, he of all people could sympathize with that horrible sense of exposure. Freak in a box, he knew that feeling all too well, being put in a cage because the world had deemed him too dangerous. It hurt more than any physical injury. Without thinking he put his palm to the glass with the intention of offering words of comfort.

She recoiled so fast he wasn't sure exactly what had happened until she was on the opposite side of the cell, her sharp teeth barred and her frame curled in on it's self and she looked for all the world like a trapped animal.

He stepped back and spread his hands in what he hoped was an innocuous enough gesture,"Easy", he soothed, "I'm sorry, I promise I won't hurt you".

He nodded toward Natasha and she gave him a hard look, "You sure you'll be okay in there?", she pressed.

"I've got it under control if that's what you're asking", Bruce answered a little more harshly than he'd intended to. He knew they were just trying to prevent a disaster, but he hated being treated like he was some lunatic that might go off at any little thing, he worked hard to manage his condition, he would have thought he had proven that by then.

She nodded, though she still looked somewhat reluctant as she went to the heavy metal door and swiped the ID card on the cord around her neck through a scanner positioned on the wall beside it. There was a low, metallic, hum and then the steel panel slid open and he stepped inside, it did nothing for his nerves that it immediately resealed it's self behind him.

She had moved over to the corner furthest from the door and although she had her face turned away from him and her head resting against the cushioned wall he knew that she was aware of exactly where he was and what he was doing.

He made his way over to her side of the room against his better judgement, backing her into the corner was certain to make her more prone panicking. But he couldn't see a way to coax her out into the middle of the room either and in the interest of time he closed the distance as quickly as was safe.

To her credit she flinched but did not do anything terribly outlandish and he wished he knew how to convey that he understood how much effort that kind of restraint took without sounding patronizing.

She slowly relaxed her posture and looked up at him expectantly through the veil of her dark lashes. She was easily as lovely as Agent Romanov, he noted, too unusual and angular to be classically beautiful like the Russian woman, but constructed so gracefully that her appearance was oddly compelling. Moreover the gown was rather short for someone her height and he was getting a view of quite a lot of long leg. It occurred to him that were he Tony he would have been hitting on her at this point but he had never been as outgoing as Stark and this was definitely not the time or place...

He sighed, he should not be thinking this way about a patient, particularly not one who had been brought in on mass murder charges and so it was with a jolt that he realized she would need to at least partially remove the hospital gown in order for him to conduct the examination.

_Pull yourself together Banner,_ a little, internal voice admonished. He squared his shoulders, kept his clinical veneer firmly up, and in his best doctor voice said, "I need to be able to see your ribs, could you please indicate which side the injury is on?".

She gestured vaguely to her left without actually looking away from him, her expression suddenly very knowing and he was left to wonder if she could tell he was nervous. She said nothing as she slipped her arm out of the short, white, sleeve and turned to offer him access to the damaged area, pulling the dress down to her waist as she did so.

He had expected her to only move the one side, or perhaps turn strategically, or cover herself with her other arm, or something that indicated some vestige of modesty. Anything besides stand there naked from the waist up as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Granted her hair covered a lot, even her ribcage which meant she would have to pull it out of the way, but given that she seemed so protective of her personal space he would have thought revealing so much of her body would have been an uncomfortable affair for her.

"Can you move your-", he waved a hand toward toward his hair. He saw her brow elevate slightly, but she made no complaint and reached behind her back to pull the tangled mass over the shoulder opposite him.

With the greatest degree of professionalism he could summon under the current circumstances he pressed a palm to her side, her skin jumped slightly at the contact and without thinking he curled his hand around her waist to steady her. Her skin was smooth and very warm, her abdomen expanded slightly with each slow sure breath, but by contrast her pulse thrummed too fast to be considered healthy. She had told Natasha that she was not human and now he wondered what exactly allowed for that odd contradiction between a clearly resting state and all the signs of a rapid metabolic rate. What triggered it? What was the purpose?

His moment of scientific curiosity and slightly less virtuous contemplation must have taken longer than was appropriate because she cleared her throat and when he started at the sound in the otherwise silent room she smirked at him, "Is that strictly necessary doctor?".

"Sorry", he mumbled and quickly reverted to his original position.

Every bit of medical training he had ever received told him that there had to be residual damage, that an injury that took months to heal did not simply disappear in a matter of hours but no matter how much he repeated what he knew to himself within the confines of his mind a single abnormality appeared. When he had checked and double checked every single rib in the affected area from the place where it met the ridge of her spine to where the bone sloped upward and outlined her stomach and found nothing out of the ordinary he was finally forced to admit that she did not appear to be hurt.

"I don't know how you pulled it off", he muttered wistfully and shook his head,"And I'm positive you're not about to tell me, but you're fine. No fragments, no fractures, not even a scar".

"So I can move about without fear of re-injury?", she inquired.

"So far as I can tell", he confirmed.

"Thank you", the sincerity in her otherwise lifeless voice was evident and despite himself he smiled. As he thought, the "monster" was not a monster at all, just a person driven by fear.

She made to fix her clothing and he turned to give her some privacy, there was the rustle of fabric, a bought of silence, and then a voice hissed directly into his ear, "Fool".

He barely had time to register her words before he was slammed into the observation window and the back of his head connected with the glass. A small hand closed around his throat and he found himself wasting precious oxygen swearing. She had gotten out of the cuffs and he hadn't even noticed, when the hell had that happened?

"Tell them to let me go", she demanded calmly, "Or I will rip out your throat".

A familiar rage twisted in his gut, was this really what he got for trying to do his job? For doing the right thing? She had been manipulating him all along, ever since he asked if she was alright, his compassion had marked him an easy victim. He was just something to play with, and he had felt sorry for her.

He could feel the change beginning already, the burn of expanding muscle tissue, the dull ache of lengthening bones, the hammering of his heart. He estimated that he had about a minute. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Natasha barking orders frantically into her earpiece, no doubt calling for reinforcement.

"I don't know if anyone warned you on your way in", he wheezed, trying to get the words out while he was still capable of rational thought, "But you really don't want to make me upset".

And then he was all senses and blind fury and he grabbed her easily in one enormous, green, hand. He squeezed and felt that fragile little skeleton begin to buckle, though it didn't bring the scream he had hoped for. She barred her teeth at him and he howled in pain when when her sharp nails dug in and tore all the way down his forearm, in his moment of distraction she wrenched hard on his fingers with more strength than someone so tiny should have been able to generate and he heard two of his knuckles snap out of place as she used the momentum to fling herself away from him.

He cried out again and lunged, barely missing her and running head-long into the padded wall. Behind him he heard the high trill of the window breaking and when he turned she had a massive piece of glass clenched in her bleeding fist. As if it would protect her.

When he attacked again she was not quite fast enough and he caught her by her long hair and hurled her against a wall, pinned her easily with a forearm at least the girth of her torso and no matter how she struggled she could not throw him off.

As a last ditch effort she rammed the shard into his back and he felt it slide beneath the plate of his shoulder blade, he screamed again and she twisted the object, slowly prying the muscle off of the bone and it occurred to him that she would actually flay him open if she kept doing that and so he reached back and clamped his hand forcefully around her arm.

She finally shrieked as her wrist shattered under the force of the impact and the beast gave a laugh of wicked satisfaction. Another female voice was there screaming as well, though he did not remember there being two. The prick of a needle, something cold creeping through him, then blackness.

* * *

_**As I've said this will eventually be Loki x OC and I will explain their history next chapter, but I was eager to explore how Banner might react to her given that they do share some significant difficulties. Plus I'm a physics student so I'm a sucker for a brilliant scientist. : P**_

_**Please review!**_


	4. Chapter 3: Stark Tower

_**A fast update indeed. This story is coming out so quickly I'm a little astounded. Thank you so much to those of you who reviewed for pointing out the good, the bad, and the interesting. I would ask you in this chapter to pay particular attention to characterization and let me know how I did. Please enjoy.**_

_**I do not own The Avengers or Thor.**_

_**Warnings: Strong language and mentions of violence**_

* * *

_-Tony Stark-_

"You want me to what now?", Tony Stark demanded.

He was sitting on a cheap, metal, stool in a room in the trauma section of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s New York bases's med wing beside a thoroughly beaten, battered, and currently unconscious, Bruce Banner. The room was depressingly dark and sterile, void of even a window and full of wicked looking instruments and a hospital stretcher. Across the room from the bed stood the rather large, rather imposing figure of Nick Fury, arms folded, scowl firmly in place. His demeanor practically screamed, "Do not fuck with me".

Well tall, dark, and angry could glare at him all he wanted but he still wasn't going to go along with what he was proposing. Tony couldn't believe he had gotten out of bed before seven in the morning on a Saturday for this.

Fury sighed heavily, "It wouldn't be permanent, we just need you to hold her for a while until we can repair her cell", the taller man sounded thoroughly exasperated.

There was a time when he wouldn't have thought twice before agreeing, when he would have jumped at the chance to have her as his personal prisoner, when he would have been arrogant enough to assume that he was too brilliant to let anything go awry.

That time, was a long time ago. Not that he would ever relinquish his famed ego entirely, but he had enough life experience at that point to realize that one could calculate until their fingers fell off but they would never account for every possibility. Something could always put a monkey wrench in the plan. If it were only himself he might have been willing to take that risk but there was Pepper to consider and he was not willing to gamble with her safety.

"Not happening Nick", he deadpanned.

"We have nowhere to keep her at the moment", Fury bit out, "It's either you or we turn her loose in Manhattan, and I don't think you want to be responsible for that".

"Since _you_ would be the one letting the tiger out of the cage I really don't see how that's _my_ fault", he fired back.

"Because you _have_ a cage right now. _We_ don't", came the sharp retort.

"What makes you think I even have anything that would do the job?", he demanded.

Fury pointedly inclined his head toward Bruce and said, "I don't think you would let yourself be unprepared".

He hated to admit it, but Fury was right, the moment he had learned that his colleague and new friend was moving out to New York he had set about installing a room that would, hopefully, keep Banner isolated in the event of an "incident", as he called them, just until he could calm down.

After a long pause in which he battled with himself he finally broke down and said, "I have some conditions".

"Then name them".

"One", he began ticking off items on his fingers, "I'm going to need some help, I don't want to baby sit the whole time I'm stuck with her and if what she did to The Big Guy is any indication I'll want some back up if she goes off on us. Secondly, I want license to do whatever I have to do to keep her in line, she had her chance and she used it to try to kill someone, I'm not giving her another opportunity. And finally", he looked Fury square in the eye, "If something goes wrong, and she hurts Pepper, I'm holding you responsible. Deal?".

The tall man nodded grimly, "We have a deal" .

"Good", he nodded, "Now show me the alien babe".

Fury rolled his eyes at him but gestured toward the door and Tony eagerly leapt up, anxious to see his new captive. It wasn't as if he would actually pursue her, he already had the perfect girl, there was no upgrade from Pepper, and even if there was he would never trade her for anything.

It was just that at the moment his curiosity was overwhelming, there was something intrinsically hot about a girl from outer space and he wanted to see if the portrayals in comic-books he had grown up with were accurate. He followed the director to the end of the hall where to heavily armed guards stood sentry outside a door with more locks than he cared to count. He did anyway, fourteen in total.

The director flashed his security key and one of them hit a button that released the numerous safeties on the door and it parted to reveal a room very similar to the one they had just been in.

There were a few key differences, namely there wasn't a single sharp implement laying around and he speculated that Natasha had made it known that the girl had nearly taken Banner's arm off with a piece of a window. There was no cart beside the bed, no exposed vents, nothing that could be used as a weapon without tearing the entire room apart.

On the bed against the opposite wall was a girl, perhaps in her early twenties, her hair was dark and she was long-limbed and small. One of her wrists was wrapped tightly in a bandage and her hand was turning shades of purple he hadn't even known existed, he winced as he took in The Hulk's handy work.

He supposed she was pretty, though her features and build were a little too dramatic for his tastes, and frankly he preferred a few more curves.

"She doesn't _look_ evil", he commented at length.

"You say that now", Fury commented dryly.

He noted that her all but her un damaged arm was cuffed and bolted to the bed, it was enough to remind him that cute or not she was a veritable hurricane and the damage she could do was not to be taken lightly.

"Is she actually out? Nat said you guys were having trouble keeping her under", he asked feeling rather dubious.

"She under alright, hasn't budged in about twelve hours", when Tony mock-applauded The Director added, "If it keeps working I'll send some of the sedative with you".

His brow furrowed, "Why don't regular anesthetics work on her?".

"We're not sure. The plan is to have Banner take some samples when he feels up to it".

"Yeah well, if you get him in the same room as Texas Chain Saw Massacre over here let me know", he retorted. Personally if he were Bruce he would be pretty upset about the whole thing. They should have sent guards in with him, they should have done a verbal psyche evaluation before they ever let a physician into the containment unit. There were so many aspects that had just been spectacularly mismanaged and as a result this little nut case had nearly ripped one of the nicest people Tony had ever known, apart.

Fury must have been contemplating how unfair the request seemed because he did not argue that point with him and opted instead to begin doling out instructions.

"We will clear the most direct route between here and Stark Tower and send her in armored van. Agent Romanov has agreed to assist with controlling the prisoner and Agent Barton will arrive by noon to oversee the transit. If there are any preparations you need to make I suggest you do so by then".

"No pressure or anything", he quipped, "I'll ask Pepper to make sure everything is ready ".

The time came surprisingly quickly and soon he found himself standing in his living room alongside and anxious looking Pepper Potts and a heavily patched up Doctor Banner. What felt like a full size parade of armed escorts was filing out of the elevator and in the middle of the brood Clint and Natasha each had a firm grip on the prisoner who looked drugged out of her mind.

He had to say that despite making The Hulk look tame by comparison he actually felt sorry for her at the moment, she was clearly so thoroughly dosed with sedatives that she had no idea where she was and he noticed her eyes kept fluttering shut, it seemed like she was struggling to stay conscious long enough to make it to her new cell.

"Where to Stark?", Clint called rather cheerily given the circumstances. In many ways Hawkeye was the very antithesis of Agent Romanov, where it appeared as if the world would end before she cracked a smile it seemed almost impossible to bring Barton down.

"Take the second elevator at the end of the hall down to level 2B. I've got the surveillance online an I'll unlock it for you guys when you get there", he waved them in the proper direction and settled into the makeshift command center in the corner of his living room to watch it all unfold.

He heard Banner move to join him and at length gestured to the cell displayed on Tony's LCD monitor, "Are you sure this one will work?", the nervousness in his voice almost palpable.

"That room could survive a nuclear war", he reassured the wary physicist, "She's not getting out of that without a Hydrogen bomb or a chainsaw, and I installed a few surprises".

Bruce laughed, shaking his head, and then they lapsed into silence as they watched the woman stagger over to her pad on the floor, they had been too worried about the safety implications to give her access to a metal bed frame, even the toilet was recessed into the floor to ensure there was nothing she could use for a weapon.

Tony hit a button on his keyboard and leaned forward to speak into the microphone, his voice carrying into the cell over the PA, "Hello. My name is Tony and I'll be your host for the next few days. Cooperate and I'll play nice too. Fail to do so and you will wish you had. Do not attempt to injure yourself or anyone else, do not attempt mislead me in any way, do not attempt to escape. I will send someone down periodically to ensure that your needs are met. Thank you for flying".

He had expected her first order of business would be to test the fortifications of her prison but whatever they had given her was clearly strong enough that any kind of serious activity was out of the question. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders, leaned against the wall, and closed her eyes.

The two agents and the escorts made their way back into the room while they watched the sleeping woman as if trying to reassure themselves that she wasn't about to suddenly spring out of bed and destroy her cell.

"So what's her deal?", Hawkeye asked as he moved to join them beside the glowing monitors, he frowned at the image on the display as if he stared long enough the answers would simply appear there. Natasha trailed quietly after him and Tony fought hard not to smile at their antics, they were going to turn up married at some point, he was sure of it. They were so obviously in love with each other that he was willing to bet that the day they figured out it was mutual they would be in Vegas that night.

Bruce threw up his good hand, the one attached to the arm that wasn't in a sling, in a gesture of defeat and said, "She told me absolutely nothing, did you manage to get anything Nat?".

"She's a mercenary, an alien, and a psychokinetic. That's all I found out", the red head supplied as if she were commenting on no more than the weather. He supposed it was more or less a normal day's work for her.

Doctor Banner however immediately tensed and rounded on Agent Romanov, "Are you telling me that you knew she was telekinetic and you didn't warn me before I went in there?", he demanded looking more than a little irritated.

"Calm down Doc.", Barton soothed, clearly eager to diffuse the situation before it turned ugly. And green.

"Don't tell me to calm down!", he cried, "She got out of the damn handcuff's without batting an eyelash! And you didn't feel the need to share that little detail with us? What is stopping her from turning that room to dust when she wakes up?".

"She didn't try to use her ability when she fought me and she didn't try it with you either", she explained rapidly, "Clearly she has a compelling reason to avoid utilizing it unless absolutely necessary".

"That reason being?", this time it was Tony who spoke, curiosity piqued.

She shrugged in dismissal, "I know as much about her as you at this point, Stark".

"Point taken", he conceded. His stomach growled and he clapped his hands together and asked, "So, who wants to go for Pastrami at Katz's?".

"You're babysitting, remember", Pepper called cooly from the couch without looking up from the magazine she was reading.

"But_ mom_!", Tony whined, "I wanna hang out with my friends!". He cursed internally, he had completely forgotten about that part and he really didn't want to spend the next ten hours watching her do nothing.

"You go", Banner said suddenly, "I can keep an eye on her for a little while".

He frowned, wondering why the physicist wasn't more reluctant to play guard dog after how close he had come to being seriously hurt, "You don't have to prove anything", he murmured so the others couldn't hear.

"I know that", his contemporary replied easily, "But I don't mind. I'm up here, she's down there. Besides, I think she's growing on me", he added dryly.

"Keep Pepper safe for me", he nodded toward his fiance meaningfully and turned to follow the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents out. Over his shoulder he saw Banner settle in behind the computers to wait.

* * *

Bruce was starting to seriously worry him.

It had begun innocently enough, he would offer to take things down to their strange prisoner because in all fairness he had the best defense against her and Tony really couldn't argue that he was the logical choice to do so.

Next he started catching him watching the surveillance far more than necessity demanded, often he did not even seem to realize he was until someone asked what was going on and the girl didn't do much. Though she seemed to have taken to biting the tips of her fingers and playing some sort of game with herself on the floor in blood. Other than that she mostly slept.

It wouldn't have been particularly bad if that was the extent of it, perhaps somewhat bizarre, but then again they were all a little odd. However, it had only taken the first couple of weeks before he started spending increasing amounts of time in the containment unit, seemingly simply for the sake of her company. He had tried hard to respect his friend's privacy but one evening out of curiosity he had looked in on them during a visit and was stunned to find them chattering away about...something...he had no idea what they were talking about.

He didn't like the only conclusions he could draw from this development. On some level he understood because in all fairness, the man had been isolated for so long, but Tony had really thought Banner would be smarter than to entertain the ideas he suspected he was entertaining about her. Bruce was no idiot, he had to know that nothing good would result, so what was the point?

To make matters worse he had been frustratingly evasive when Tony had tried to confront him about it.

He had waited up one evening when he knew he was likely to be visiting her and sure enough at ten on the dot he had come from the hallway that led to the utility elavator. When he rounded the corner the smile on his face, small though it was, could only be described as triumphant.

"What are you so happy about?", he worked hard to keep his voice teasing and light.

The scientist shrugged and quickly rearranged his expression into something more disinterested, "Nothing in particular", came the painstakingly neutral reply.

He had hoped that Bruce would just be open about the whole thing and explain what was running through that admittedly, formidable mind, but it appeared as if he were going to have to be more direct to get the answers he wanted.

"You wanna sit?", he asked suddenly and gestured to to the spot beside him on the over sized sectional, "I think we should sit".

He saw the other man's dark eyebrows elevate but he took a seat beside Tony, albeit somewhat awkwardly, "So", he prompted, "What is it?".

"What are you doing Banner?".

Tony practically winced the second the words were out of his mouth, he had intended to sound serious, but not accusatory. Predictably the physicist looked a little startled and he practically saw him close off to what he might have to say. This was going to be harder than he thought.

"What do you mean?", he asked, still carefully mild, "I'm heading home".

At this his eyes narrowed, he could have accepted a straight refusal to discuss the matter. He wouldn't have liked it but he could have dealt with it. But the one thing he hated was when people played dumb. "Don't give me that", he snapped, "You know what I meant! The girl, what are you doing-".

"Malcolm", Bruce corrected out of nowhere.

"What?", he demanded.

"She gave me her name just now, she's called Malcolm", Tony fought hard for the heart to wipe that little smile off of his friend's face.

"I should have expected something weird like that", he muttered, "But that's not the point. Why are you spending so much time with her?".

"I'm supposed to be studying her", he dismissed quickly.

"Do you really expect me to buy that?", Tony asked, incredulity leaking into his voice.

Banner seemed to finally break down and he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Okay, I give, what do you want me to say?".

"I want you to tell me you realize you're being nuts!", he bit out, "Bruce, she will _kill_ you. Do you understand that? She's here because she's responsible for a mass murder. The second you let your guard down she will take your head off, you're playing with fire here".

"She trusts me", came the quiet protest.

"How do you know?", Tony demanded, "How do you know anything with her? You said it yourself, one second she was fine, the next she was ready to snap your neck. Maybe it won't be today, or tomorrow, but eventually it will happen again", he let out a growl of frustration, "Please tell me this is getting through to you? You can not play this game with that girl. _You can't trust her_".

"And what about me?", the scientist challenged, "Am I not trust worthy either? I might go on a rampage any second".

"Don't twist this around", he barked, "This isn't about redemption, this is about you not ending up dead".

"You don't get it", Bruce shook his head, almost in wonder, "She saw what happened when the other guy took over and she still trusts me. It went horribly, I attacked her", he trailed off and seemed to contemplate his next words for a moment, then said, "but she's not afraid of me".

"Listen", he implored, "I understand-".

"No you don't", his colleague interjected, "And I can't expect you to. But you should stop acting like you can, we've lead very different lives and it's easy for you to sit there and tell me how things should be because you've never had to deal with reality the same way most people do"

He had a fair point, Tony could concede that. He'd had the privilege of pursuing exactly what he wanted, he had rarely been forced to compromise or adapt. Sure adjusting to life with a neon light permanently affixed to his heart and a hunk of metal stuck in is chest had been a challenge. But he had still had plenty of support along the way, he had never been hated or ostracized for it, and if the person sitting next to him was any indication that made a world of difference.

So Tony let it go on because he wasn't cruel enough to force him to cut ties with one of the few, he was hesitant to use the term person given how the girl-how Malcolm-behaved. However the point was whatever odd sense of solace Banner found in her, Tony couldn't bring himself to take that away from him.

That didn't stop him from monitoring the situation closely, and though he thought the whole thing was bound to end with a bang he was thoroughly impressed with how the scientist conducted himself. He did absolutely nothing that might even be misconstrued as an advance toward her and Tony gathered that whatever Bruce might _feel_, what she actually amounted to was a confidant. As for her part, Malcolm remained as inscrutable as ever, though she did seem willing to break her quiet seclusion enough to carry on a conversation. To be honest he didn't quite understand the allure, she was neither lively nor warm, but Banner had always been more subdued than himself so he supposed it made sense.

It was a tenuous state of things and they were careful to skirt around discussing it directly and in fact did not bring her up at all for the following five weeks.

And then one night he came home and nearly tripped over something on his way out of the elevator. He swore violently and turned around to see the offending item which turned out to be a massive hunk of polished iron with a red handle attached to it, Mjolnir.

"What the hell are you doing here", he muttered.

It was at that point that he heard a loud clanking from the kitchen and he jumped and rounded the corner to see a Thor sized hole in one of his floor to ceiling windows and the god himself in full Asgardian regalia rummaging through his fridge. He cleared his throat loudly.

The enormous man started and righted himself. He nodded and smiled in greeting and with a mouth still full of food said, "I must speak with you urgently. There was an incident with Loki".

Tony nodded numbly and went to the we bar to pour himself a drink.

* * *

_**Okay, so her back story isn't in this chapter but this idea was just begging to be put in and does spice up the plot a bit. If anyone has proven they could hold their own against Loki as a rival it's Doctor Banner and I'm expecting it to be great fun to write. You will find out Malcolm's history next chapter, I swear, Thor is about to explain.**_

_**Please review : )**_


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